How to quiet your thoughts during Meditation

I think we do people interested in meditation as part of a spiritual practice a great disservice when we tell them from the get-go that they have to ‘quiet the mind’ or ‘still their thoughts’. Quiet what mind? How is that possible? We have heard it said many times that the mind is a powerful thing; it has the power to heal and to destroy, to create from nothing, to connect with our subconscious selves and even to expand to the far reaches of the universe so how can we quiet such a powerhouse through meditation?

So let us not even go there and for those of us who advocate that one ‘quiets the mind”, perhaps we should explain the process differently.

I would like to propose that we begin to encourage seekers to “look for the Eye”. I see the mind like a hurricane (called typhoons or cyclones in different parts of the world). There are the areas of highly destructive winds and rain that rage, causing rampant destruction to kit and kind and then there is the calm spot referred to as the ‘eye’. Here everything settles down. There is a quiet, a peace that is passed. Many people use this time to venture from their shelters to observe the damage.

I invite you to find the Eye in your meditative practice. Or perhaps we can say find the ‘I’, the idea remains the same. Find the quiet spot in your practice where you can sit and observe your thoughts swirling around, sometimes like a massive hurricane, powerfully persistent. But you sit from your I, observing these thoughts and doing nothing. Here is where you find your peace, your moment of calm during meditation. Do not let thoughts bother you. Let them come and stay, invite them in and watch then do the hurricane dance. Remain in the I and as time passes, the space that the I occupies grows and you begin to feel the expansion in your awareness. The whipping winds and driving rain of the mind quieten over time, just like the hurricane, but with you remaining in that peaceful I.

This may not happen right away, it may take many weeks or months, and for some of us even years but we benefit from sitting in the eye. That I is always there and easily found because it finds us.

Forget about thoughts, sit in your I, and observe.